Beyond the Ivory Tower (6 page)

Anna responded with an anemic smile when yet another colleague offered her a pat on the back. Three weeks ago, when she’d taken to her blog to express her frustration over Klara’s situation and Ethan Talbot’s stonewalling, she hadn’t expected such an outpouring of support from fellow academics across the country.

She viewed blogging as a cheap form of therapy. It enabled her to write about whatever bothered her, and then move on. She never anticipated that her posts would garner much attention. They usually fell like the proverbial tree in a forest: with just enough noise to get a comment or two from current students, or the occasional backlink from another mathematician’s web page.

The firestorm that this particular post generated caught her by surprise. Somehow she’d become the unwitting mouthpiece for all of Ethan Talbot’s critics. She considered taking the post down, but to what end? Her words had already been reposted, liked, and re-tweeted, their reach growing exponentially each day. And her views hadn’t really changed.

So what if Ethan was charming, smart, sophisticated, and so damn sexy that just thinking about him turned her brain to mush? He was still pouring money into something that was not just wrong-headed, but also the direct antithesis of everything she stood for and believed in. His experiment was laying waste to nine years of effort on her part to raise her sister the way their parents would have wanted. And on a broader scale, it was sending the wrong message to a generation of kids already at risk of failing. What they needed was incentive to stay in school, not encouragement to drop out.

She wondered if Klara was following any of the chatter, and if so, what she thought of it. They’d talked by phone just yesterday—a brief “How are you” and “All is well” type call, with no mention made of the controversy sparked by Anna’s post. At least Klara was still talking to her. That had to be a good sign.

“Anna, wait up.”

She glanced over her shoulder and stopped, allowing the chair of the math department to catch up. “Hi, Bill.”

“I need a favor.” He brushed a hand through his receding ginger hair. “Are you busy tonight?”

That depended on his definition of busy. She was planning to polish one of the proofs she’d been working on for months. The submission deadline was next week. Not exactly what most people would consider the height of excitement for a Thursday night—especially on a college campus where the weekend started early. “What’s going on?”

“The dean is concerned that our department is under-represented at tonight’s donor recognition dinner.”

“Ah.” She knew what was coming, but she wasn’t going to make it easy. Just because she was one of three women in the department—twelve if the count included adjunct professors and visiting scholars—and the only one in the group who was still unattached, didn’t mean she relished being the token female and perpetual last-minute substitute at whatever official function lacked sufficient diversity.

“It’s really important that we have a good turnout,” Bill continued. “If we want the donors to keep funding our efforts, we need to at least show them a little of what we’re doing with their money.”

Have them attend one of my lectures
, Anna wanted to say.
Or read a few of my papers
. But she kept quiet. Bill had championed her bid for tenure four years ago. Even though the voting process was confidential, she’d heard there had been quite a bit of grumbling among the older faculty members about promoting such a young candidate—opposition that might have sunk her case, had it not been for Bill’s vigorous support. As much as she owed Terry Tao for providing the initial opportunity to join the department, she owed Bill even more for helping secure that position for life.

She sighed. “What do you need me to do?”

“Show up. Talk for five minutes in plain English about how your research will change the world. Thank the donors. That’s it.” He smiled. “Two hours of your time. Three, tops.”

“Wait—what happened to ‘five minutes’?”

His eyes glinted behind the wire-framed glasses. “Well, there’s dinner. And dancing.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I’m no good at schmoozing. And I’ve got two left feet.”

He glanced down at the feet in question, currently encased in Teva sandals, and shrugged. “Don’t dance. Just show up. Seven o’clock at the W Hotel on Hilgard.”

~

She surrendered her keys to the valet and slowly made her way up the neon-green stairs to the hotel’s main entrance. By the time she reached the second floor reception hall where the guests mingled for pre-dinner cocktails, she was cursing her choice of footwear. She’d be lucky if she didn’t break her neck in the stupid heels that she’d dumped at the back of her closet after returning from San Francisco.

Damn, she hated these events. She was no good at small talk. Or dumbing things down for the benefit of people with too much money and too little brains. She ought to be grateful for their support, she knew that. After all, it was these private donors’ largesse that helped fill the funding gaps left by shrinking resources at the federal, state, and institutional levels. But trotting out her accomplishments as part of a professors-on-parade show ranked as one of her least favorite things to do. Laser hair removal was less painful than having to explain her work in sexy sound bites to an audience that didn’t know the difference between a group and a ring.

Taking a deep breath, she smoothed down the material of the only little black dress she owned, adjusted her silk wrap, and stepped through the double doors.

It might have helped if she had a plus-one to bring along. Someone to bridge the awkward pauses in conversation, and to keep her from falling flat on her face both physically and metaphorically. Too bad all the colleagues and friends with whom she might otherwise have attended were either paired up or too busy to accompany her tonight.

For a moment, she imagined what it would have been like to have Ethan by her side. If things had turned out differently, if she hadn’t gotten drunk and made an idiot of herself….But she had, and despite the few additional texts that he’d sent and she’d been too embarrassed to respond to, that interlude was over.

“Anna?”

She paled. It couldn’t be. Here, in L.A., at an event honoring donors to the university?

But it was.

She looked up from a snowy shirt framed by a gray suit the exact color of his eyes. Eyes that melted whatever resolve she might have had.

“Ethan.” She licked her suddenly dry lips. “What are you doing here?”

His mouth curved into the same half-smile that had haunted her dreams.

That’s when she noticed the proprietary hand on his arm, and the blond blue-eyed goddess at his side.

“Colette Broussard,” the goddess said, extending a hand toward Anna. “And you are?”

~

Something sharp jabbed him in the ribs. He glanced down. Colette’s elbow.

“You’re drooling,” she whispered.

He glanced back to the podium, where Anna was explaining how research in STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—impacted everything in today’s world.

She looked so serious on the surface. Brows drawn, dark hair tamed into a tight bun, precise hand gestures to emphasize whatever point she was making. But beneath it all, she was pure, unadulterated sex. Gorgeous curves wrapped in a short black dress. Long legs and those crazy red stilettos that he’d fumbled to remove just a few short weeks ago.
Oh, man.
He broke out in a sweat, picturing her spread out on a bed beneath him, dressed in nothing but those heels, her sleek legs wrapped around his hips as he rocked against her—

“Should I be jealous?” Colette said.

He blinked. “What?”

“You’re looking at her like she’s a seven-layer cake and you’ve just come off a year on the Atkins diet.”

He managed to drag his eyes off of Anna. “I’m that obvious?”

“To me you are,” Colette said. “But then I’ve known you a long time.”

He sighed. “Remind me why I agreed to come here with you.”

“Because you’re a good guy, and you’re not afraid of my husband.”

“Right.” He shook his head at his own folly—and Colette’s.

For him, this evening presented an opportune excuse to come down to L.A., where he had hoped to spend a few days tracking Anna down and seeing if he could persuade her to pick up where they left off. She might be able to ignore his calls and text messages, but in person he hoped he could talk her around to his point of view.

As for Colette and her motivations…well, who was he to judge? Love, anger, and desperation could make an otherwise intelligent person do crazy things. Colette claimed this was about reclaiming her dignity by publicly thumbing her nose at her cheating spouse. Ethan suspected she was still in love with her husband, and this gesture was a last-ditch effort to reclaim his attention.

Either way, he’d agreed to play a supporting role in the melodrama by accompanying her tonight. Her husband had recently announced a huge donation to his alma mater. Now, Colette planned to brazenly endorse that school’s biggest rival by donating a matching amount.

The only thing Ethan hadn’t thought through was how helping Colette’s cause might damage his own. But then he hadn’t anticipated that Anna would attend tonight’s dinner.

Luckily, he was pretty good at damage control.

~

“There is a quote attributed to Dean Schlicter,” Anna said, wrapping up her five minute verbal tour of research highlights. “
Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics.
It’s true. Without mathematical foundations, we wouldn’t have computers and smart phones. There would be no 3-D special effects in movies. We’d have a much harder time predicting the weather, doing economic forecasting, maintaining and improving our national infrastructure.

“But as much as we do today, there is always more that
can
be done. Which is why it’s so important to encourage our young people to go into STEM fields. And why your continued support of our university—and of higher education in general—is so crucial to our future and the future of generations to come. Thank you.”

She returned to her seat, her eyes straying briefly to the table where Ethan sat with his date. Colette whispered something in his ear. An expression of—what? alarm? chagrin?—flitted across his face.

Anna turned her attention back to the stage, where the chancellor had taken the podium.

She couldn’t believe how close she’d come to sleeping with Ethan. Klara had been right: the man was obviously a player. So sure of himself, so smooth, so entitled. So taken. And by one of tonight’s biggest donors, according to the figures quoted on the back of the printed program. Had they been together all along? And if so, what the hell had he been doing flirting with Anna two weeks ago?

She’d assumed he was a free agent. Shame on her for not asking. It simply hadn’t occurred to her to do so. Gullible, that’s what she was. And an idiot. Why else would she still feel so attracted to a man who was clearly a cheater?

A few more speeches followed, and then the roll call of big-name donors who were each presented with a ceremonial plaque in appreciation of their contributions. Anna watched as Colette took her turn graciously accepting the accolade. Did the woman know that Ethan was an unfaithful bastard? Did she care?

Anna glanced toward Ethan again, startled to find his eyes fixed on her rather than on his girlfriend. What the hell? She frowned and looked away.

A surreptitious glance at her watch showed that it was barely eight-thirty.
Chort poberi.
It was going to be a long night.

~

“She’s lovely,” Colette murmured as they swayed to the strains of a waltz.

“Who?” Ethan tore his eyes away from Anna, who was scribbling on a piece of paper while listening and periodically nodding in response to something the man beside her was saying.

Colette raised a carefully groomed brow. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

Ethan sighed. “I don’t think she likes me much at the moment.”

“Why do you say that?”

“We had a difference of opinion about the Fellowship. She aired her views quite publicly online.”

“Oh. Wow, that was
her
?” Colette laughed. “I knew the name sounded familiar.”

“Go ahead, rub it in.”

“Sorry, Ethan. But you have to admit, it’s pretty funny. Considering she’s having the same problem as you.”

“What problem is that?”

“She can’t keep her eyes off you.”

“Really?” His gaze slid back to Anna. She was getting up with an older man. Ethan frowned, noting her stiff body language. He followed their progress around the dance floor, his frown deepening as he saw her repeatedly edging back while the man kept pulling her closer with every turn.

Ethan nudged Colette closer to the other couple. “Would you mind…?” he murmured.